


Distance is Relative

by tinx_r



Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-04
Updated: 2009-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinx_r/pseuds/tinx_r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cody is away on a visit to his mom...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distance is Relative

**Title:** Distance is Relative  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Summary:** Cody is away on a visit to his mom...

"You're not exactly making this easy for me," Cody growled down the phone, one eye on the doorway to the hall. "Come on, Nick."

"I don't wanna make it easy for you." His partner's voice, tight, not exactly angry but starting to get wound, the way he did. "I told you not to go, I told you how it'd be, an' like always I was right."

"Yeah, but Nick, I had to. Mom - "

"Yeah, yeah, I know how she lays the guilt on you, big guy." Nick's voice softened, just a fraction, and Cody sighed, leaning his head against the wall. He'd only been gone two days, but it felt like forever. He didn't know how he'd make it through the rest of the week.

Voices came from the hall and Cody straightened up, looking at the door anxiously. The house was full of strangers, distant relatives he'd for the most part never met, all here for the funeral of some obscure cousin. Cody'd never heard of him before last week when his mother called, demanding his presence, but when the will had been read, Cody had understood. Cousin Samuel had cut up to the tune of a couple of million, and although he'd got lost somewhere in the legalese, he understood his mother's cheshire grin all right.

"Cody? You there, man?"

"Yeah." Cody started, turning back automatically, wincing as his eye fell on the phone instead of Nick. Nick at his side made everything bearable, even these rooms full of strangers. Even his mother's brittle laugh as she said 'private eye'. "Sorry."

"The funeral's over, right? Come home, pal. I'll even call the airline for you, huh? Hell, I'll even pay."

Cody swallowed the lump in his throat, and his voice sounded hoarse in his ears. "I wish I could." He hesitated, then said softly, "You know how bad I miss you, right?"

"Cody!" His mother swept into the room and Cody nearly dropped the phone in surprise. "Ah, there you are. Is that that nice Francine you're talking to?"

"Uh - no, Mom - " Cody barely registered Nick's soft chuckle, struggling to find a response. "I told you that it didn't work out - "

"Goodbye, baby." Nick's voice was soft in his ear, and then came the sharp click, the humming, impersonal dial tone. Cody broke off, lowering the receiver, looking from it to his mother in dismay.

"I know you told me you weren't seeing Francine any longer, but a mother can only hope for her son's happiness." Elizabeth Allen shook her head sorrowfully. "She really was exactly the kind of girl I'd always imagined you marrying, Cody."

Cody winced and put the receiver back in its cradle. "Sorry to disappoint you, Mom," he said wryly.

He managed to keep himself busy for the rest of the day. There were numerous out-of-town relatives who'd stayed in the city, and Cody played chauffeur all afternoon, ferrying people from hotel to airport to train station, carrying bags and shaking hands and smiling until his face ached.

He returned to his mother's close on five, hoping Nick was home. The all-too-brief phone calls to the Riptide were the only things keeping him sane, but this time the phone rang and rang until at last the answerphone cut in, Murray detailing their services then finishing up with a hurried request for the caller's name. "And number! Yes, please do leave your number too!"

Cody grinned even as he hung up. They really had to re-record that message one day. He checked his watch again, his grin fading. He'd be unlikely to get another chance to call tonight, and he swore softly under his breath.

At dinner, he managed to seat himself next to Marion Gordon, preferring her chatter to the sly glances of the willowy blonde his mother kept pushing into his orbit. Marion was bubbly and excited about her new dress, and more so about the handsome young man seated opposite her, and Cody grinned indulgently at her, feeling like a grandfather. Had he ever been as young as these kids?

"Miss Gordon's sights are set higher than you," his mother reprimanded him after the meal, and Cody looked at her with blank astonishment. She shook a finger at him, and pointed at the blonde. "Why don't you ask Dana to dance?"

Cody escaped the dancing, his mother's disapproving gaze, and a group of distant cousins who wanted him to accompany them to a strip joint, retreating to his room. At home, he was the social one - Murray could spend hours in his room with his computers and seemed just about happier there than anywhere else, and Nick, given the choice, wouldn't mind if he never saw anyone except Cody and Murray for the rest of his life. But here, now, Cody couldn't wait to be alone, away from the too-personal, too-interested glances of his relatives.

Sleep was slow in coming - it always was on nights he spent alone. The dark pressed down, chill despite the summer night, and Cody switched the lamp back on and fetched the extra comforter from his closet. When he'd first got back he'd been ashamed to sleep with the light on, but that was one more thing that Nick had taught him not to fear. Even when they were together, there were still nights they couldn't face the dark. When alone - Cody sighed and shifted, burying his face against his own shoulder. He was wearing Nick's t-shirt, and it smelled of him, faintly. Between that and the light, he prayed the dreams would stay away.

He woke at six - far too early to call California - and took himself out for a drive. He didn't know the area well, but all he was looking for was solitude, and he figured anywhere that wasn't the city would do.

The place was strange - everything about the road, the river, the towns he passed through was strange to him, and he missed California's sunny blue with a soul-deep hunger. But it was nothing to the ache he felt at being without Nick. Cody pulled off the road, staring into the gentle foreign greens of this eastern forest. Four more days. Three more nights alone.

With a groan, he put the car back in gear and turned back. The day was starting, soon he'd be missed and the last thing he wanted was his mother's prying questions, his sister's half-contemptuous, half-speculative looks. He figured if he hurried, there'd be time to find a payphone on the way, give Nick a wake-up call back home in King Harbor.

But all he got was Murray on the answerphone again.

By mid-afternoon, Cody was jumpy. Lunchtime had heralded still no answer from his boat, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd gone twenty four hours without speaking to Nick. Even when Nick was at Reserves he managed to call night and morning, and Cody was starting to worry. Murray was at a conference in San Francisco, and Cody didn't think Nick would have taken a case on his own, but if he'd taken that damned chopper up and something had gone wrong... Cody fought the fear back and told himself that if he hadn't heard from Nick by nightfall he'd call Mama Jo. She'd know exactly what was going on at Slip 7, and at every other slip on the pier, come to that.

He was still smiling at the thought of Mama Jo's eagle eye on the harbor comings and goings when his mother came into the room. "Oh, Cody, there you are at last," she said, bestowing a beaming smile on him.

Cody raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What is it, Mom?"

"Albert James, a lawyer from Rochester, just called for you," she said in a congratulatory tone, consulting a slip of paper in her hand. "Look, here's the number."

"A lawyer from Rochester?" Cody stood up, confused. "I don't know any lawyers here, Mom."

"But he knows you, and that's what counts." Elizabeth Allen held out the paper to her son. "He said you'd been recommended to him by a police lieutenant in California. I wouldn't be surprised if he had some work for you, Cody, and that could lead anywhere!"

"He - " Cody stopped and shook his head, taking the paper. "I guess I better call him."

He left the room, bemused. Quinlan recommending him to a lawyer made no sense, and Joanna - Cody couldn't see it. So who the hell was this Albert James and what did he want?

Cody picked up the receiver and hesitated. Should he call Nick first? He wavered a moment, then with a shrug, dialed the numbers written on the page in his hand. He'd find out, at least, what the guy wanted.

The phone was answered on the third ring. "Alpha Motel, yeah."

Cody raised his eyebrows. "Uh, do you have an Albert James there?" he asked, wondering if the number was wrong.

To his surprise, the bored voice on the other end assented, and a moment later the phone rang again.

"Albert James." The voice was warm, amused, and desperately familiar. Warmth flooded through Cody and he gasped.

"Nick?"

Nick chuckled, full and rich. "That's not what it says on my law degree."

"How - What - ?" Cody stopped, then burst out laughing. "Nick, you're here?"

Nick laughed again, smug and self-satisfied. "Now, baby," he said in a low, gravelly voice that sent thrills up Cody's spine, "Albert James is a real high-powered lawyer, you know? And this case he needs your help with, it's gonna keep you pretty busy the next few days."

"I'm counting on it," Cody said breathlessly.

"I hoped you'd say that." Cody could hear the grin in Nick's voice. "I missed you so bad, man."

"Not as bad as I missed you. Nick, I'm on my way."


End file.
